Azerbaijan makes statement on European Parliament's member visit to occupied lands (UPDATE

The visit of a member of the European Parliament from Sweden, Lars Adaktusson, to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, where the bloodthirsty ethnic cleansing against more than one million people, including the crime against humanity and the Khojaly genocide were committed by Armenia, on the eve of Holocaust means to support the aspirations of occupation, aggression and bloody ethnic cleansing, said Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev.

He was responding to Trend’s question about the visit.

He noted that this illegal visit, along with the violation of Azerbaijan’s laws and norms and principles of international law, harms the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to resolve the conflict through negotiations.

“It is extremely shameful that the visit of European Parliament member took place with the participation and funding of head of the Armenian lobby operating in Brussels, and engaged in money laundering and diamonds trade. The illegal visit of Lars Adaktusson to the occupied Azerbaijani territories and contacts with the criminal regime created there at a time when EU member states suffer from the tendencies of aggressive separatism, when the EU and the European Parliament express support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Eastern Partnership countries, are not understandable,” said Hajiyev.

Instead of supporting aggressive separatism and occupation, Lars Adaktusson as a member of European Parliament could, by sharing and promoting a successful model of autonomy between Sweden and Finland, which are the Aland Islands, contribute to the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and ensure sustainable peace in the region, added the spokesman.

Lars Adaktusson’s name will be included in the list of undesirable persons of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Hajiyev said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.